The No. 3 Queens University of Charlotte women’s swimming team claimed first place overall in a field of 14 teams at this weekend’s Sheraton/Le Meridien Fall Frenzy at the Mecklenburg County Aquatic Center.

High school junior Henry Schutte has joined a small wave of class of 2019 commits that have made their verbal commitments in the last week. He has verbally committed to swim for Todd DeSorbo and the new coaching staff at the University of Virginia, beginning in the fall of 2019.

Schutte swims for the Rapids Area Y Swimmers in Grand Rapids, Michigan, and had a big breakout swim at the USA Swimming Winter Junior Championships – East two weeks ago. While he didn’t finish in any A finals individually, he won the B final in the 50 free in a new best time of 20.12, swam a best time in the 100 free (44.61), and most excitingly split 19.37 on the anchor leg of his team’s 200 medley relay. While that relay finished just 39th, Schutte’s anchor leg was the fastest split of the field.

Schutte only swam 3 individual events at Winter Juniors (50 free, 100 free, 100 back), emphasizing his specialty as a sprint freestyler. As we all recalibrate with perspective on times for earlier commits, Schutte still has time to develop a 3rd event before he arrives in Charlottesville.

Even if that doesn’t happen, he will still provide immense value for the Cavaliers. Virginia’s fastest 50 freestyler this year, sophomore Ryan Baker, swam a 20.03 at the Georgia Fall Invitational. Baker is about a second better than Schutte in the 100 free this season (43.60), but Schutte’s times are already within range of what would contend for relay spots there as well at Virginia.

With this commitment, DeSorbo, who came to Virginia from NC State, is already beginning to remake the Virginia program from the ground-floor: sprints and relays. That’s the same place where NC State started when they built their program from national anonymity to a consistent top-5 finisher at the NCAA Championships. More specifically, DeSorbo was in charge of the NC State sprint group.

Schutte attends Forest Hills Central High School, where last season he was the Michigan Division I champion in both the 50 and 100 yard freestyles.

Schutte’s best times, yards (flat starts):

50 free – 20.12

100 free – 44.61

200 free – 1:41.99

500 free – 4:44.50

100 back – 52.37

100 fly – 53.57

If you have a commitment to report, please send an email with a photo (landscape, or horizontal, looks best) and a quote to [email protected].

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Interesting if Todd will continue any distance tradition at all at Virginia.

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10 months ago

Oldswimfan

I wasn’t impressed with the distance crew at their mid season invite. Fenwick is a good open water coach, but has not produced NCAA finalists in recent years.

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10 months ago

Hiya90210

Just some food for thought. Tennessee was a sprint program up until 2012. There wasn’t a lot to work with. He built a program that was churning out national team member (granted in OW) and had the most milers at NCAA’s than any other school. Kids always improved with him in a variety of events.

To my knowledge, Fong, Giller, Schubert, Casey, Earley all swim with him at UVA. Their meets were pretty good. My guess is that crew was pretty beat up and definitely wasn’t shaved. Why don’t we wait and see?

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10 months ago

Oldswimfan

Hiya,

That’s a fair statement. I don’t know who swim for Fenwick, but those swimmers you mentioned definitely had a great meet and I’m looking forward to following their improvement at the ACC and NCAA. My comment in regards of Fenwick was strictly based of his results at Tennessee. Again, he is a very good open water coach…. but if you count NCAA points his swimmers produced in distance events over the past 4 years, it doesn’t match. I hope he can turn this around at UVA!

1:42 for Fong without rest and taper is very fast! Maybe he’ll challenge Vazaios and Harting at the end of the season.

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10 months ago

Swimdadacc

Fong beat harting in a dual meet correct? Obviously in season but still a good sign. Fenwick doing a good job with him, Casey and others

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10 months ago

Red Rider

Shame he can’t come now. They need to get Fong off that relay. Bad looks for a sprint school

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10 months ago

Lay Off

My boy

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10 months ago

(G)olden Bear

Is this the first of the rumored Fab 4?

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10 months ago

Goldie

I believe the FAb 4 reference is to the 4 new coaches.

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10 months ago

swimmom

Yes

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8 months ago

About Braden Keith

Braden Keith is the Editor-in-Chief and a co-founder of SwimSwam.com.
He first got his feet wet by building The Swimmers' Circle beginning in January 2010, and now comes to SwimSwam to use that experience and help build a new leader in the sport of swimming.
Aside from his life on the InterWet, …